Bangladesh lags behind peer nations in ICT development

Bangladesh, which has spent tens of thousands of crore taka for ICT development in the last 15 years, lags behind its peer economies in a key ICT global index.

Bangladesh scored only 61.1 in the ICT Development Index (IDI) 2023 of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialised United Nations agency for information and communication technologies (ICT).

The 2023 edition of the index includes 169 economies.

Bangladesh trails neighbouring economies, with Sri Lanka registering a score of 69.9, Bhutan 76.5, Vietnam 80.6, Maldives 79 and Cambodia 68.5.

And while the report lacks data on India, Pakistan and Afghanistan scored 48.7 and 28.9 respectively.

Only 38.9 percent of the individuals in Bangladesh were using the internet last year while 38.1 percent households had internet access, according to the report.

The index is based on two main pillars -- Universal Connectivity and Meaningful Connectivity.

The universal connectivity pillar measures the proportion of individuals using the internet (from any location), proportion of households with internet access and active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Bangladesh only scored only 39.2 in this segment.

The meaningful connectivity pillar measures mobile network coverage, percentage of the population covered by at least a 3G mobile network, percentage of the population covered by a 4G/LTE mobile network, and mobile broadband internet traffic per subscription.

This pillar also examines mobile data and the voice high consumption basket price (as a % of the GNI per capita), fixed-broadband internet basket price (as % of GNI per capita), percentage of individuals who own a mobile phone, and fixed broadband internet traffic per fixed broadband subscription.

In this segment, Bangladesh fared well with a score of 83.

The average IDI score is 72.8 out of 100. The 100-mark corresponds to a situation where a country or group has reached the goalpost value on every indicator of the IDI.

A score of zero corresponds to the hypothetical situation where there is no connectivity at all: nobody uses the internet; nobody is covered by a mobile-broadband network; there are no mobile-broadband subscriptions; no data traffic is generated, etc.

The lowest score obtained in the IDI 2023 is 20.0 while the highest is 98.2.

Some 33 countries have an IDI score of between 90 and 100. Another 47 countries have a score between 80 and 90. At the other end of the scale, 30 countries have scores below 50 and another nine have between 50 and 60.

These results suggest the world has made significant progress towards universal and meaningful connectivity, with half of the countries almost at or past the 80-point mark (median of 78.7), according to the report.

Still, half of the countries are spread across a 60-point range, with a few scoring in the low 20s. Additionally, as mentioned above, the IDI does not capture all aspects of the UMC framework, such as fixed broadband penetration, internet speed, ICT skills, or safety.

The report said two-thirds of the world's population use the internet, which is woven into the entire fabric of peoples' daily lives.

Yet, one-third of the world's population remain offline, and even among the nominally online population, many are not meaningfully connected.

Multiple digital divides persist, across and within countries, between men and women, between younger and older individuals, between cities and rural areas, and between those who enjoy an ultra-fast fixed-broadband connection and those who struggle on a shaky connection.

"Some 400 million people are entirely beyond the reach of a mobile broadband network," it added.

In the IDI index, 10 other factors are considered and Bangladesh significantly lags behind the global average in 8 of them.

Moreover, Bangladeshis allocate only 2 percent of their income for mobile data, voice and broadband internet services. Also, the rate of mobile phone ownership stands at 61.8 percent.